Dell 7559 M.2 Upgrade

hyfurd2112

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May 9, 2014
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Hello. I recently bought a Dell 7559 off ebay for 750 dollars. It is the i7 6700hq version. However I want to upgrade the storage. First I looked into getting an SSD but I saw there was a M.2 slot. So now I want to keep the existing 5400rpm 1tb hard drive and install a 500gb M.2 in place of the 8gb flash cache. Basically the laptop was advertised as having a SSHD 1tb 5400rpm and 8gb flash cache.

My question is how does this M.2 8gb flash cache work? Does the OS all fit in there? Will I be able to swap it out for, lets say, a Samsung M.2?
 
Solution
Yea most of the M.2 in Desktops and Laptops are the 2280, and I would go with the Samsung 850 Evo. The PM851 is an OEM SSD and the Samsung Software does NOT see it as a samsung drive. The PM851, and also another brand, cant remember, is what usually comes with Dell Laptops (At least on the Lattidue series) for M.2 SATA SSD's. I would go with the 850 as I said though. You can setup the 850 with all the bells and whisles that Samsung has to offer.

And yes the 8GB is just a Cashe and honestly really not worth much. No way you can install an entire OS on a 8GB SSD (At least not with windows unless it is Windows XP or something lol)

Just you HAVE to make sure that you go into the BIOS, and set it from RAID to AHCI, and then unplug the...
It is set up in a way that the 8GB is JUST a cashe. It stores the most used files there and writes files there only later to be written to the HDD later on.

If you were to upgrade the M.2, disable RAID in the BIOS and set it to AHCI, and then reinstall windows just on the M.2 then you would have two seperate drives.
 

hyfurd

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Mar 24, 2016
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Thanks for the quick reply drtweak. I have a few more questions.

Is it a 8gb cache then?
Is this 8gb M.2 cache worth anything?
Would you think a Sandisk x400 500gb M.2 for 150 usd new a good deal? Is it reliable?

I may have found the perfect SATA M.2s
What is the difference between this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SAMSUNG-850-EVO-M-2-500GB-SSD-SATA-III-Internal-Solid-State-Drive-MZ-N5E500BW-/331775599993?hash=item4d3f5de579:g:i8YAAOSwG-1WvF0y

and this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-512GB-PM851-M-2-SSD-SATA-III-2280-80mm-MZ-NTE5120-MZNTE512HMJH-00H1-NGFF-/251908722878?hash=item3aa6ee10be:g:yLEAAOSw5dNWi0s~

I believe the Dell 7559 fits 22x80mm M.2s (2280)
 
Yea most of the M.2 in Desktops and Laptops are the 2280, and I would go with the Samsung 850 Evo. The PM851 is an OEM SSD and the Samsung Software does NOT see it as a samsung drive. The PM851, and also another brand, cant remember, is what usually comes with Dell Laptops (At least on the Lattidue series) for M.2 SATA SSD's. I would go with the 850 as I said though. You can setup the 850 with all the bells and whisles that Samsung has to offer.

And yes the 8GB is just a Cashe and honestly really not worth much. No way you can install an entire OS on a 8GB SSD (At least not with windows unless it is Windows XP or something lol)

Just you HAVE to make sure that you go into the BIOS, and set it from RAID to AHCI, and then unplug the existing HDD, install windows, and then reinstall the old hard drive
 
Solution

hyfurd2112

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May 9, 2014
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Thanks for the answer drtweak. Unfortunately for me I went with the PM851. It was not because of your suggestion but I chose impatiently lol. Will the speeds be the same or at least not noticeable? Should I return this and get the EVO? If there is nothing I need from Samsungs bells and whistles will I still be able to install Windows 10 using the product key on the old HDD that I wipe?
 
The speeds should be the same on them.

And for windows 10 all you had to do is install the proper version (Home or pro) and once it is connected to internet it will activate automaticlly no need to put the product key back in so long as it has already been activated on that PC>
 

hyfurd2112

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May 9, 2014
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Oh so the motherboard remembers the product key? So what I do is remove the cache, set RAID to AHCI, and install 512gb M.2 and install Windows 10 it will remember the key?

Why are the two M.2s priced differently then?

Sorry and thank you for answering all my questions.
 
Again one is OEM and one is Retail.

With the Retail one you can't use the Samsung tool to enable Over Provisioning and Rapid mode to make the SSD faster.

ALSO after really looking into it the PM851 is more of a 840 EVO than a 850 EVO and i guess the 840's had issues with slowdown that was fixed with a Firmware upgrade